


Hiraeth

by eyrist



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Engine Room, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, No P5R spoilers, OR IS IT, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, akeshu - Freeform, shuake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22734619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyrist/pseuds/eyrist
Summary: Goro Akechi has been having these weird dreams lately.Sometimes, it's of a strange world full of distorted reds and blacks, lined with endless railways and creeping with faceless monsters. Sometimes, it's of a quaint, homely, little café. Sometimes, it's of a massive ship sailing over the ruins of a flooded city. Sometimes, it's of a face he can never quite remember upon awakening.He hates those dreams. It makes his chest hurt and his heart ache for days on end.And then, he finds out about the Metaverse, and the dreams start to become just a little bit clearer. He can explain the distorted world, the ship, even the café! But the black hair and the sweet smile elude him, and he's just about given up hope on ever pinning an explanation on the boy plaguing his slumber two years after.But on the train, on one normal day of sleuthing and Shadow-slaughtering, life decides to give him the middle finger and another few months of suffering and waking up feeling a part of himself missing.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	1. Drowsing

It was a bullet-filled split-second. That was all it took before the gate closed behind him.

The slam of the heavy metal shook his body to the bones as it collided with the ceiling, eight faces disappearing from view in just a quick moment. He’d always been one to read faces as a second instinct, and maybe he would allow himself to believe that the expressions on the Phantom Thieves’ faces spelled true remorse and concern when they’d heard the alarm go off and the thick metal come between them.  
_Maybe_ he would, if the thought wasn’t filed away in the back burner of his brain. In that moment, there was one thing occupying the entirety of his fading consciousness, and it wasn’t the familiar (yet too foreign) face that stared back at him with a pistol in hand and shadows flanking him.

It was, maybe, the pain. Fire bloomed from his muscles, sore, tired, beaten, and bruised after their little scuffle, and his head swam in and out of lucidity. Every fibre in his body was screaming at him to escape, but Goro Akechi had focused less on the searing numbness of Death creeping up on him for a much more comforting task, something that would (at the very least) give his death and his mind the thinnest sliver of peace.

“Let’s make a deal, okay? You won’t say no, will you?”

His throat was scratchy and rough, begging him for rest even as he coughed, rasped, _forced_ his voice to reach the group on the other side.

“Change Shido’s heart in my stead.. End his crimes.. Please!”

A beat of silence lingered in the air, amidst the footfalls of the Shadows circling him and the alarm ringing off around the room. It made his head throb with a pain that was already present even _before_ this fake had strolled in and summoned corrupted Personas, and faintly, he heard the Phantom Thieves scrambling through the metal door. It didn’t surprise him that they’d chosen to make their escape already— after all, who would listen to the traitor?

“Wh— Joker!”

A gruff voice, deep, commanding, and _angry_ (maybe _desperate_?) had resonated above all the noise then. It rang in his ears, right as he’d filled his lungs with what would be his final breath, before raising his gun towards his cognitive twin.

“Come on!”

 _At least **they** escaped_, he’d thought to himself then.

_At least they’ll change Shido’s heart, whether for my sake or not._

Then aimed.

“So my final enemy is a puppet version of myself..”

Put his finger on the trigger.

“Not bad.”

Stared at the double in the eyes, at dark ruby irises too familiar, yet also too foreign.

_BANG_

_BANG_

He felt his body collide with the ground, maybe at the same time as the cognitive double’s. With eyes squeezed shut, he curled in on himself from the pain exploding within his chest, groaning, wanting to scream but knowing he _can’t_. With every movement, he could _feel_ the bullet lodged next to his heart move, shift just the tiniest millimetre and send pain racing across his body.

“ _Goro!_ ”

And then, there was a hand on the back of his head.

“Goro, stay with me!”

A sudden weight off it. His helmet must’ve been taken off.

“Come on.. Somebody use a Goho-M, now!”

A leather-clad palm on his cheek.

“You’ll make it out of this.. Please, just..”

A choked voice, rumbling from within the chest his cheek pressed against.

“Please..”

A flash of light.

 _Heaven_.

He was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :^  
> :^D 
> 
> hello ! it's eyrist again after like,,, m o n ths of not posting anything new. i think i shook off the burnout now that school is on that downward slope of having less and less things to do, so here i am !! 
> 
> honestly, i've had this idea on the back burner since around july of last year ??? and i felt like forcing myself to write m&m now would just tip me back on the burnout thing, so here's,, this. lmao  
> have no fear though, i'm actually starting to write m&m again !! i even posted a preview of track 24 on my twitter sksksk 
> 
> it feels gucci as f u ck t be back though. hope this ride is as good as m&m is rn 
> 
> please tell me what you think though !! comments are super duper appreciated in this house ! 
> 
> listen list !  
> lorn - acid rain  
> savlonic - epoch (the living tombstone remix)


	2. Dream 01

When Goro Akechi opened his eyes, the world bled into him in bits and pieces. Like a puzzle, the image of his bedroom fell into place within his head.

It was the same shit, just on a different day: The chill of the apartment sent goosebumps racing up the skin of his arms, the dreary, white walls he saw first thing each morning and last each night enclosed around him in a never-endingly suffocating cage, the back of his head buzzed with a low hum as he blinked the sleep away and forced himself to sit up, his tired brain conjuring only the image of static and stuttering.

And ah, there it was again— the part he hated most about mornings.

Goro had begun to convince himself that it was getting easier and easier to ignore the burning ache that made itself home within the space where his heart might’ve once sat in. With each day that passed and each time he awoke, he’d become adept at willing away the pain, at shoving the lingering feeling of emptiness _far_ beneath his skin— something that felt too much like his soul had been torn at the seams, the frayed edges forever searching for something— _someone_ —that once again showed its face in his dreams.

_Fuck._

It felt like he’d been shot in the heart.

But he had no time to dwell on that. Not when Tokyo called his name and he had class in an hour.

Stepping onto the platform was part of the mundane routine his body had memorised these past two years. His feet moved on their own accord on autopilot as his head swam with which assignments were due that morning, which broadcasting stations he had to go to for interviews soon, which people he had to threaten and/or shoot the next time he entered the strange, dizzying world of the Metaverse. Normal stuff.

As normal as it could get for him, anyway. It’d been the mundane routine of his life since just after he turned sixteen.

But there was never enough caffeine pumping through his veins to deal with the bodies that pushed and shoved beside his. There was never enough preparation that could stop him from feeling completely and utterly _irritated_ at everyone and everything around him. He was still too sober to deal with this. Goro needed another coffee, maybe a round of decimating Shadows and pretending they bore the face of a particularly-disgusting politician— probably _both_.

He sighed, the sound itself inaudible under the screeching of tires before them. The vehicle had eased to a slow stop before the doors opened, and Goro kept to routine and stood close to the exit once he’d boarded the train. His gloved hand gripped a nearby pole tight as he could as the onslaught of the early-morning rush hour flooded into the seats and what space remained within the cars. Five minutes hadn’t even passed before the train was stuffed full, office workers and students occupying each and every _centimetre_ of the floor.

From above them, the doors beeped that familiar, droning tone as they slid shut slowly.  
Goro found himself leaning his head onto the pole—maybe out of sheer exhaustion, maybe because the group of schoolgirls next to him wouldn’t stop bouncing on the spot—as his eyes closed shut for just a _second_. The ache within his chest had never once yielded since the moment he’d been made aware of it when he awoke, and it was a pain in the ass to make his daily commute being suffocated by bodies upon the gears, when the muscle beating within his ribcage felt as if it’d been constricted within ropes and talons all in the same breath.

And when he opened his eyes again, the ropes and talons turned to vines lined with thorns, sharp, little knives digging into his heart and pushing a stone up his throat.

It was hard to even _breathe_.

Because a flash of black clouded his vision as he stared out amongst the windows of the train, the image of a warm gaze and a sweet smile intruding in on his mind’s eye. From the other side, standing onto the platform _he_ had just been on mere minutes ago, a dark stare (irises that shone like obsidian gems cast beneath the blanket of a starry night) locked onto his. They’d widened just as much as Goro’s eyes had become, and in the _second_ they saw one another, Goro wouldn’t have mistaken the streak sliding down the boy’s cheek for sweat that clung to his forehead.

As the train pulled away from the station, Goro couldn’t ( _wouldn’t_ ) stop trying to catch just _one_ last glimpse of the vision he’d seen in his subconscious, the one that stood—looking _lost_ —on that platform with wild hair that curled in dark locks and too-big glasses that could never truly hide his eyes.

Eyes that looked familiar.

Eyes that he swore he saw _somewhere_ before.

Eyes that brought a phantom pain to writhe within his head and his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ironically enough, i have been awake for a solid 37 hours and counting lmao  
> idk what this is  
> just an idea ? a lil thing side project next to m&m ? y u p probably 
> 
> here is  
> an intro to the story ig  
> idk i legit just sat down bc sleep wouldn't come and wrote this  
> head empty, nothing else is there smskmsk 
> 
> tonight's lullaby  
> promare ost - ashes


End file.
